Cows and lack of fed funding are threats to former internment camp

Minidoka Listed as Endangered Site

By Nathaniel Hoffman, 6-17-07

The former Japanese internment camp at Minidoka was named one of America’s 11 most endangered historical sites today by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

I wrote about the threats to the camp in February. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has put together a very nice Web page (click on “More”) with a history of the site and, if you scroll to the bottom, ways you can help preserve it.

The Washington, D.C.-based group, recognized that a huge feedlot proposed near the camp, now a National Monument, could threaten its viability as a tourist attraction and diminish its historical value.

Alma Hasse, of the group Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment, nominated Minidoka for the list. It was the first nomination and the first listing from Idaho. She was on Bainbridge Island Thursday for the announcement of the 11 most endangered places.

“My hope is that due to the elevated public awareness, now we’ll be able to give the Japanese American citizens the opportunity to be heard,” she said.

Hasse expects a hearing in about a month to six weeks on a nearly 14,000 head heifer operation in Jerome County just downwind of the Monument. There is no requirement that the County take into account testimony from Japanese Americans or from anyone outside the general area where the feedlot is to be sited, despite having a National Monument in the vicinity.

A spokeswoman for the Trust told me that in the past 20 years about 52 percent of the places listed as endangered have been saved and only 6 of the sites have been lost entirely. Minidoka was one of 11 sites selected from 60 nominations this year.

Why 11? Because one year the committee could not narrow the list down to 10 and it just stuck!

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